Denied a career in the Foreign Service due to an amputated leg, Virginia Hall would go on to work undercover in France during World War II for British intelligence and later the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), organizing numerous sabotage operations against German forces. In this memo dated May 12, OSS Director William Donavan informs President Truman that she has been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross — the only female civilian in the war to receive this honor. After the war she became one of the new CIA’s first female officers.

On May 1, 1960, an American U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers was shot down over Soviet air space. Dated May 2, this document details a cover story to be released regarding the flight.

This telegram, written by German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann and received by the German Ambassador to Mexico on January 19, 1917, is a coded message sent to Mexico, proposing a military alliance against the United States. The obvious threats to the United States contained in the telegram inflamed American public opinion against Germany and helped [...]